Revolutionary Road (15)

WRAP up warm with a thick, winter coat and scarf when you watch this film – Sam Mendes’s beautifully-crafted adaptation of the novel by Richard Yates chills to the bone with its unflinching portrait of scenes from a disintegrating marriage.

WRAP up warm with a thick, winter coat and scarf when you watch this film – Sam Mendes’s beautifully-crafted adaptation of the novel by Richard Yates chills to the bone with its unflinching portrait of scenes from a disintegrating marriage.

Set in 1950s suburban Connecticut, where white picket fences and impeccably mown lawns project an image of suburban bliss to mask the betrayal and regret, Mendes’s film leaves us cold, certainly for the opening hour.

A deceptively cosy prologue, detailing the first encounter between Frank (DiCaprio) and aspiring actress April (Winslet) at a cocktail party, segues into screaming, shouting, tears and recriminations.

It’s a far cry from when the couple first arrives at the perky little house on Revolutionary Road, full of hopes and dreams.

They raise two children and make ambitious plans to move to Paris, where she can take a well-paid secretarial position at a government agency and he can decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

But the Wheelers are soon driving each other insane as Frank sleeps with a secretary and an increasingly unhappy April encourages the advances of a married neighbour.

This is a very polished film, from Mendes’s deliberately slow direction to the flawless production design, the cinematography and the moody score with echoes of American Beauty.

Performances are electrifying with DiCaprio and Winslet verbally tearing strips off each other, in stark contrast to the last time they shared the screen.

And yet, disappointingly, questions are left unanswered. And it is so desperately depressing.

Only in the sombre closing frames do we find ourselves moved by their anguish and when the desperately sad ending comes.

Bleak, powerful and beautiful – but a film to revel in the acting, not to sit down and ‘enjoy’.